Time to say goodbye to the Rush Limbaugh Show

The Andrews sisters’ World War Two-era song Shoo-Shoo Baby by songwriter Phil Moore contain the following lyrics:

Seems kinda tough now
To say goodbye this way
But papa’s gotta be rough now
So that he can be sweet to you another day.

During WWII, soldiers took off across the seas to “be rough” on foreign battlefields against enemies who hated freedom, loved tyranny, and wanted nothing more than to destroy for the sake of selfish domination. Aren’t we glad there were those who loved freedom, hated oppression, and sought to defeat evil empires’ global marches? Yes, of course.

On February 2, 2021, I listened to what we now know was Rush Limbaugh’s final show. Worst show he ever did. And why not? He would die fifteen days later on February 17, yet was trying his mightiest to stay in the battle until the last. At the time I thought, “He will not be back.” I was right.

There are those who are all up in arms about Rush’s show being cancelled and that time slot being filled by Dan Bongino starting at the end of May 2021. Dan might be easier to listen to than watch. I wish him well. Big shoes to fill, that’s for sure.  

Here’s my advice to Bongino: Don’t try to fill those shoes.

Differently functioning shoes are needed now. As much as I loved listening to his show, Rush was fast reaching the end of his effectiveness on the larger stage. Tis not heresy I bring to this discussion, nor a denial of the good he did both publicly and privately, but it is an open-eyed look at how the battle and fighting tactics needed have changed.

Longtime listeners already knew that Rush was right, what he was right about, and why. Yet after his death, the show’s team kept on with the playing of Rush’s clips followed by “Wasn’t he brilliant and sagacious and awesome and all-knowing?” [Sniffle, sniffle, wipe-a-tear, go to commercial because we’re so broken-hearted.] It was a bad display of the cult of personality. (More on that later.)

The insider industry scuttlebutt is that Rush-show listeners got very tired of the extended worshipful grief that seemed to be milking the moment for far too long…especially since we have an ideological war to fight. It was time to change out of the black widow’s weeds. “Mourn a moment. Now strategize!” was the thinking of most of the faithful listeners…and they were right.

Old soldiers should be revered, but they shouldn’t be on the battlefield.

Rush was a soldier in that war. He understood that when he fell on the battlefield, the war would not stop. Like all loyal and dedicated soldiers, he fought to his last breath. However, he would not have liked the extended grieving for him that was and still is going on. Some smaller stations may run show clips for fans, but those will never get the ratings of his live show. My opinion, too, is that he would never have quit the radio game unless forced to and would’ve thus become a caricature of himself.

Seasons and reasons

Even as his reason for being on the forefront was still there, Rush’s season was ending and he didn’t know it. Would Rush have been capable of changing his actions and redefining his role to support the reason? I don’t know.  

This set of circumstances is the same with Trump. Somewhere in the first week of May 2021, I heard Sebastian Gorka say on his radio show that what we needed was more Trump rallies. Big rallies with people hollering Conservative catch phrases. To Seb I ask, “Define more, please. And also, define the point.” [I wrote this on that subject.]

The point is that Trump is the water carrier of the message. It is not Trump who is important, it is the message. Will Trump be more effective as the president after Biden? Has that season of his changed? Will he be more effective in a new role? Or will the message be overshadowed by slavish devotion to the Cult of Personality? Lyrics from the song by the band Living Colour say:

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
A leader speaks, that leader dies
You don’t have to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your own god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
Oh, I’m the cult of personality

I believe the new crop of Conservative and Libertarian radio talk show hosts (Bongino, Gorka, Kirk, Sekulow, etc.) learned a lot from Rush. No doubt about it, Rush saved AM radio in 1988 with the invention of the talk show format; the new crop of hosts know this is true.  

For a variety of reasons, they and some of the old guard (Larry Elder, for one) will be better able than Rush to operate in the reemerged radical environment we find ourselves in. What is happening now is not new and the new crop are willing to “be rough” when needs be.

Rush was witty and polite yet never saw real battle or faced down real bullets. He wasn’t a street fighter or a trained soldier. He was effective as a citizen soldier. What we need now, though, are street fighters and trained soldiers. But we need them not to fall for the cult of personality. We need them to be surefooted on uneven ground. We need them to remember what the fight is about. If they bring ego into it, let it be ego that serves the message, not the messenger.

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Born and raised in Georgia, Angela K. Durden is an author, publisher, editor, songwriter, performer, and more, living in the Metro Atlanta, Georgia, area. Support your Citizen Journalist and visit her Consolidated Author Page and buy a book. See more about Angela here. Want to watch a fun video? Click here.